I'm sorry, but "living metaphor" really does seem like music critic bulldust. Isn't just that these particular songs came out of the mind of this particular person? And thanks to these songs, this particular person seemed to a large number of young people to be on the ball, where it's at, and bloody brilliant?

Sometimes when I read your posts, OB, I think of Bear Stanley on his high chair.

I'm not signing on to the theory that Dylan sought to become a metaphor.And I would bet dollars to donuts that he would not agree to that, either. But I could be wrong - I don't know him!I figure he writes a song and then moves on, and not into metaphor-land, either.Anybody here actually know him?

Ensign wrote:I'm not signing on to the theory that Dylan sought to become a metaphor.And I would bet dollars to donuts that he would not agree to that, either. But I could be wrong - I don't know him!I figure he writes a song and then moves on, and not into metaphor-land, either.Anybody here actually know him?

now wait a minute show me where i said this is what he sought to do. things sometimes just happen you know. sometimes we are just instruments.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." — George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Susan Butcher wrote:I'm sorry, but "living metaphor" really does seem like music critic bulldust. Isn't just that these particular songs came out of the mind of this particular person? And thanks to these songs, this particular person seemed to a large number of young people to be on the ball, where it's at, and bloody brilliant?

Sometimes when I read your posts, OB, I think of Bear Stanley on his high chair.

take it or leave it and we're skirting territory here we may not want to enter.

it's more than just the songs

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." — George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Susan Butcher wrote:It is more than the songs. It's also the people who heard them and took them as gospel. Even if they weren't quite sure what some of them meant.

uhm, i meant performance. you're hung up on meanings of words. your thinking is way too linear. read some kerouac

here's a message from garcia:

Songs are poetry, I guess, but it’s how a song works that’s most important, and that’s not always a function of what the content is, but the whole thing — the texture of it, the sound of it, the way it trips off the tongue, all that stuff. Sometimes it doesn’t have to mean anything and it can still evoke a great something. (Jackson 17)

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." — George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

And you tenaciously try to make a structure and content of your dispersing thoughts that confuse you.You must be very tired.You should stop reading and thinking for some time.Go fishing or make castles in the sand.

Garcia was just trying to substance the emptyness of some of their lyrics and you are trying to make a higher level of spirituality and wisdom out of your idols creations. How old are you? you must be some kind of an overgrown kid.Not to think of the worse.

Look, if I start talking about performance, then you'll just get me telling you about what I specifically like about Dylan's music, even if I pretend it's an answer to the question of "ultimate greatness". And I do think some of Dylan's songs, obscure in meaning though they may be, do "evoke a great something". It's a difficult thing to do, but Dylan did the trick for a huge audience, and perhaps this his great achievement. This is what I've trying to say. I'm being "linear" to counter what I think is mystification.